Team Herald
VALPOI: There are over 31,000 voters and the total population is approximately 40,000 in Valpoi Constituency. There are total five panchayats and one municipality. The panchayats are Nagargao Village panchayat, Khotodem, Sanverdem, Guleli and Usgao and the Valpoi Municipal Council, the lone municipality.
The major issues in Valpoi are the land ownership of Alvara, Kumeri, Mokaso and other land rights. Besides, there are no proper basic amenities. There is the acute water shortage problem, no proper power supply, no roads in rural villages, no network connectivity in remote areas, no public transport. There is no proper garbage treatment plant in Valpoi Municipal Council jurisdiction. All councillors are forcing the Valpoi Municipal workers to throw the garbage in the forest, the locals alleged.
In Valpoi Municipal Council jurisdiction the Children Park and the Municipal ground is in a bad condition for the past one decade. Despite the locals complaining about the bad condition of Children Park and the Valpoi Municipal ground to the councillors and the Municipal body, the authorities have failed to act on their complaints.
“There is no proper market in Valpoi town, and also no proper parking place. Every monsoon there is flooding in Valpoi town. Whatever development work has been carried out in Valpoi is done without a proper plan,” claimed the locals in the constituency.
The present Municipal Council Body has put the Valpoi Town in backward position without anything worth mentioning. The locals allege there is lot corruption going on in the Valpoi Municipal Council.
“Half of the councillors at present in the council have been elected continuously for three or four times but they have failed to even develop their own ward. The senior councillors are responsible for all the mess which is going on at present in the Valpoi Municipality,” says Dashrath Mandrekar, a local.
The standard of education is also very poor in the constituency. There are no well equipped anganwadis in the remote villages.
“Sattari Taluka does not have a college. The roads are not connected in the remote villages while the lifestyle of people of Valpoi is not matching today’s modern world. There is a need of change in the lifestyle of Valpoikars,” says another local Shubham Shivolkar.
“In our village there is no proper motorable road, the road which exists is in a very bad condition. There is no proper anganwadi in our Budruk Karmali village. We always face water shortage in our village. The water which is supplied to us is not clean. It always contains dirt. If you visit our village you will feel like you have entered in one backward village of Bihar. There is basic no basic amenities in our village,” says a villager Dnyashewar Paryekar.
“We are demanding the government to return the ownership of our land and the withdrawal of criminal cases which were filed against our forty village youths during the IIT agitation. Our village youth are or private sector because the Melauli villagers have opposed the IIT project in our village,” says a villager Shashikant Sawardekar.
